Books for Christian Girls: "Garden of the Midnights" by Hannah Linder

About this book:

  “The accidents are not a matter of chance. They are deliberate. As English gentleman William Kensley becomes aware of the danger at Rosenleigh Manor, he pleads for the truth of his past from the only man he can trust—until that man is murdered.
    As the secrets unfold into scandal, William’s world is tipped into destitution, leaving him penniless and alone. His only comfort is in the constant friendship and love of Isabella Gresham. If he does not have their nonsense at the seashore, their laughter, their reckless adventures, has he anything at all?
    He should have known that would be ripped from him too. When a hidden foe arises from their acquaintances and imperils Isabella’s life, William may be the only one willing to risk his life to rescue her. But even if he frees Isabella from her captors, will he still have to forsake her heart?
   Some sacrifice everything for love. Others sacrifice love for everything else. In this haunting tale of rigid social prejudices and heart-aching regrets, the greatest decision of their life will be determined in the garden of the midnights.”

Series: No, a stand-alone novel.

Spiritual Content- Prayers; 'H's are capital when referring to God; Towards the end, William wonders if God is laughing at him and does not care about him *Spoiler* because of all of the things that have been taken away from him and feels very bitter; He tells God that he forgives Him towards the very end *End of Spoiler*; Mentions of God, Christ, & forgiveness; Mentions of churches & clergymen; A few mentions of praying & prayers; A few mentions of a man’s “saintly wife” & her making him confess and repent to a clergyman; A few mentions of sins; A couple mentions of a Bible (including swearing on one); A couple mentions of Godspeed; A mention of someone looking like an angel; A mention of an Anglican liturgy at a funeral;
             *Note: When discussing the poor and rich and how they are viewed, William says that “there are too many people who would offer the honorary seat to the rich and the stool in the corner to the poor.” and Isabella responds “I have heard the vicar at church read as much.”; William’s aunt tells him that he was a “sinful child” and was “wicked”also; A man says that “we are here and there, caught in a realm between heaven and hell. I sometimes wonder if we are in the latter already”; The phrases “for mercy’s sake”, “mercy”, “by all that was holy”, “would/wish to heaven”, “good heavens”, and “what in the name of heaven?” are said and exclaimed up to multiple times each; A few mentions of some men and women being called devils; A couple mentions of a terrible event being the work of demons and devilish; A couple mentions of ghosts & haunting a place; A mention of a place being as “black as sin”.

Negative Content- Minor cussing including: a ‘blasted’, a ‘dumb’, a ‘give a devil’, a ‘stupid’, a ‘thunder and turf’, a ‘what the devil’, three ‘bloody-well’s, three ‘the devil’s (replacing ‘heck’ or stronger), four forms of ‘dash/dashed’, and six ‘bloody’s; Mentions of curses (said, not written); Wishing to die (when things look deadly or hopeless, both William and Isabella have these thoughts up to a few times total); A Swordfights/Duel, Fighting/Punching, Being slapped and hit, Being strangled, Being kidnapped, Being shot, Being shot at, Being held at gunpoint/knifepoint, Being robbed, Pain, Injuries, Blood/Bleeding, Passing out, Nightmares, & Thinking they are dying/will die (up to semi-detailed to detailed); Seeing deaths, seeing someone shot and killed, injuries, & blood/bleeding (semi-detailed); Someone has ordered for William to be killed & we see attempts (semi-detailed); Marauders attack, shoot at others, and try to set a young woman on fire (someone believes another is dead after their attack, up to semi-detailed); *Spoiler* William kills a man in a duel by stabbing him multiple times (up to semi-detailed) *End of Spoiler*; William goes to drink and wants to lose himself in the alcohol to forget someone (but doesn’t drink more than the foam); William recalls his aunts verbal and physical abuse & her locking him in dark rooms as a child (up to semi-detailed, including comments of it being good that his mother died because she wouldn’t have loved a “sinful child” like him and he believes her, having bitterness in his heart towards his mother and father; She claims his parents are to blame for him being wicked and therefore deserving of her punishments); Isabella eavesdrops on conversations; Mentions of a murder, murder attempts, deaths, bodies, injuries, pain, & blood/bleeding (up to semi-detailed); Mentions of raiders/marauders, fires, stealing, & thieves (up to semi-detailed); Mentions of a husband who abandoned his family & his family ill and dying after he left (including his starving children, up to semi-detailed); Mentions of murder attempts disguised as accidents; Mentions of verbal and physical abuse by an adult figure to a child (William’s aunt towards him growing up); Mentions of grief (for a lover, a wife, mothers, sibling, up to semi-detailed); Mentions of blackmail & threats; Mentions of nightmares (barely-above-not-detailed); Mentions of hatred; Mentions of lies, lying, & liars; Mentions of gossip & rumors; Mentions of alcohol, drinking, social drinking at parties, & drunks; Mentions of smoking, tobacco, cigars, & pipes; Mentions of having to shoot an injured horse & bury it (barely-above-not-detailed); Mentions of manure & human waste; Mentions of a butcher shop, the smells, throwing up, & blood (border-line barely-above-not-detailed // semi-detailed); A few mentions of hangings (including a man saying that if something was revealed to others, he would hang himself); A few mentions of workhouses & children dying there; A few mentions of torture; A few mentions of vomiting; A few mentions of hunting; A couple mentions of a man beating his son to where he couldn’t walk (barely-above-not-detailed); A couple mentions of a baby being bruised & mistreated; A couple mentions of jealousy; A couple mentions of eavesdropping; A mention of gambling;
             *Note: William’s aunt and cousin have been mean to him for years, but he always hoped that they would love him; William’s cousin always craved his mother’s attention, but never received it (because of this he is jealous of William being punished by her because that means he at least got her attention); William feels upset at his aunt for her cruelness and wishes for her to die, but stops that train of thought; *Spoiler* William finds out his parents are not his biological parents and feels hollow at not knowing who he is; His nanny who was involved in his upbringing thought it was the better choice for him than to grow up in the workhouse and he agrees that he could have died there if not taken *End of Spoiler*; Mentions of prejudices towards the poor; A few mentions of a man loving one child but treating his other child terribly; A couple mentions of a book (‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’); A mention of a man calling other cowardly men women (“men who are not women, too afraid to fight”).

Sexual Content- Staring at another’s lips, finger kisses, a forehead kiss, two cheek kisses (one being semi-detailed), a barely-above-not-detailed kiss, six semi-detailed kisses (two unwanted/forced), and a detailed kiss; Remembering kisses (up to semi-detailed); Touches, Hand holding, Electricity, Warmth, Nearness, & Smelling (up to semi-detailed, some are unwanted/forced); Remembering touches, embraces, & warmth (up to semi-detailed); Wanting to touch & embrace (including imagining undoing a girl’s hair pins, up to semi-detailed); Noticing (including muscles, up to semi-detailed); Blushes; *Spoiler* At the beginning, William is told that he is an illegitimate child; Later it’s revealed that his biological parents and their marital status is unknown *End of Spoiler*; Isabella doesn’t believe in love *Spoiler* after hearing her parents talk about not loving the other when she was young and her realizes that they acted like they cared for the other only in front of her *End of Spoiler*; Isabella is intrigued and scared by a mysterious man (not William); There is a man somewhat obsessed with Isabella & touches and kisses her without her permission *Spoiler* He kidnaps her towards the end of the book, tears her clothes to show her undergarments, kisses her only, and William says he will kill the man if he had “robbed her innocence” *End of Spoiler*; Isabella wishes to runaway with William *Spoiler* and though he is tempted, he will not do that to her because he cannot provide for her *End of Spoiler*; Mentions of illegitimate children, men doing their duty when a woman is pregnant, affairs, secret love trysts; Mentions of women running away with servants; Mentions of reputations, scandals, & young women being compromised; Mentions of kisses & kissing; Mentions of blushes & flirting; A few mentions of a man being a rogue & stealing kisses (barely-above-not-detailed); A few mentions of trollops; A couple mentions of jealousy; A mention of a man losing control of himself and loving a woman in “every forbidden way” (and thus her becoming pregnant); A mention of a man’s “uncontrollable passions”; A mention of a man’s sensual lust after Isabella; A mention of a man running off with a married woman; A mention of prostitutes; Love, falling in love, & the emotions;
             *Note: William thinks that being near Isabella is healing him and his wounds; Mentions of mothers and a baby who died in childbirth; A few mentions of scantily clad trollops & a woman’s dress not fully covering her bosom; A couple mentions of a young woman who only finds gentlemen and wine delightful; A mention of a man saying obscenities towards fair-faced maids; A mention of a man saying that he’s yoked to a plain woman, but knows he could never be happy without her; A mention of a shirtless man.

-Isabella Gresham, age 20
-William Kensley, age 21
                                P.O.V. switches between them
                                           Set in 1809-1810 (Prologue in 1787 & Epilogue in 1814)
                                                        322 pages

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Pre Teens-

New Teens-

Early High School Teens-

Older High School Teens-

My personal Rating-

Let’s first admire that gorgeous cover, yes? It’s beautiful.

I was very hesitant about reading this book, because the author’s first book wasn’t my favorite writing style with it being very poetic and flowy, but I found this one more enjoyable and easy to read. Like the prior book I read by this author, this one was also very dramatic most of the time, though some of the beginning parts were entertaining. I don’t read many books with the Forbidden Lovers trope and this book reminded me why—the angst nearly does me in! And that was especially the case with this book and all the dramatic parts and scenes. I’ll admit that I wasn’t a fan of the last part nor thrilled with the ending angst. (The epilogue was good though and was a nice calm after the crazy storms these characters went through.)

I really enjoyed the first third of this book because of the cute sibling moments. I love the sibling content. I’m disappointed that ended up being a romance book, even though I knew it was going to be, hahaha! They quickly went to possibly-siblings to not to forbidden lovers a bit too fast in my opinion, but it was over the course of sometime in the actual book, which I tried to keep in mind. That said, they were really cute together with both angles.

The villain of the story was…well, a villain and I hated him, quite honestly. His parts and events towards the end made me drop the ratings for this book personally and for BFCG’s age groups.

I think it’s important to note two things: 1.) There’s a few times the main characters wish to die or to end it all when things look terribly hopeless that could be hard for some readers. 2.) There’s a lot about forgiveness but it doesn’t come across as the Christian thing to do or what God requires of us until the very end when a character chooses to forgive God because of different past events and feeling bitter towards Him. Most of the faith content prior was begging prayers or asking God why something happened.

It was an interesting read to be sure, but one that I liked some parts and disliked others.

See y’all on Friday with a new review!